Stephen Hawking’s Memorial Service Welcomes Time Travelers

When former The Simpsons guest star Stephen Hawking passed in March, he left behind a lifetime worth of invaluable contributions to the world of theoretical astrophysics. Aside from his distinguished life’s work, Hawking left behind his last unpublished paper which simplifies the mind-bending concept of the multiverse by reaching the conclusion that there exists a finite number of universes and they all share the same laws of physics. How did Hawking reach this conclusion? For one, he performed decades of careful mathematical calculations, of course. Yet an odd detail from his memorial service set to be held in June could suggest Hawking had help from the future.

When the first details about Hawking’s memorial service were made public, tens of thousands of people from over 50 countries applied for admission. At the service, Hawking’s ashes will be interred between the remains of Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. While filling out the ballot for the service, one applicant noticed that the birth date field on the application allows any date can be chosen up to December 31, 2038. Are the service’s organizers expecting visitors from the future?

Wormholes have long been suggested as a possible means of traveling through time.

When asked about the odd date choices, a spokesman for the Stephen Hawking Foundation said they are leaving the possibility of time travelers open just in case:

We cannot exclude the possibility of time travel as it has not been disproven to our satisfaction. All things are possible until proven otherwise. But so far we have had applications from all round the world, and we do mean round – there are no flat-Earthers here.

This isn’t the first time a Hawking-related event invited time travelers from a future time. Hawking hosted a “time traveler party” complete with champagne and hors d’ouvres in 2009, hoping someone from the future might show up. Unfortunately, no one did, causing Hawking to remark that this was evidence time travel was not possible. But why would a true time traveler want to put herself under public scrutiny like that? If they’re here, they’re certainly blending in the best they can. Except Elon Musk – that guy’s way too obvious.